Ruined City
by ElliQuinn
Summary: The team got through their last crisis successfully - but with the CIA aware of John's continued existence things won't remain quiet for long. An old CIA mission's consequences come back to haunt Reese - will he be able to fight his way out of this one? Rated low T for occasional swearing. Follows on from "Meetings", "Modus Vivendi" and "Ancient History".
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: This is part of a series which began with the story "Meetings" and continued with "Modus Vivendi" and "Ancient History". It picks up right where "Ancient History" left off, and if you haven't read any of the prior stories I strongly suggest you start with those first, as this whole thing has become thoroughly AU by now. All that said, I hope you enjoy this - please do leave a review if you liked it!**

There was still over half of Finch's tea remaining that afternoon when the chime came from his computer. Harold grimaced and placed the paper cup carefully on a workbench well away from his keyboard. Another Number? But then he saw the message blinking in its little box and froze. "Ah. Oh dear." He sat and pulled the keyboard towards him and began typing. After a few minutes Bear came over and rested his muzzle on Finch's thigh.

Absently Finch paused for a moment to stroke the dog's ears. "Oh, Bear. It's deja vu all over again," he muttered, and resumed typing. But after another few minutes he stiffened and came to a sudden stop, then rose hastily from his seat, reaching for his laptop in its bag. "Come on, Bear. We need to go," he said, clipping the dog's lead on and walking as rapidly as he could out of the subway hideout.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Reese was sitting in his shirtsleeves, his Sig disassembled for cleaning on his desk at the detective agency when the call came. 'Blocked Number'; Harold of course. He allowed it to ring for a few more seconds while he carefully put down his tools and wiped the gun oil from his fingers, and then answered it.

"Hello, Harold," he said easily. There seemed to be a lot of background noise; Finch must be out on a street somewhere.

"Hello, John. Are you having a pleasant day?" There was something just very slightly off about Harold's voice which had him sitting up a little straighter.

"Oh, I'm fine, Harold," he said: an even, pleasant tone in keeping with Finch's. "How are things with you?"

A chuckle from the other end. "Oh, much as usual. It just occurred to me that I never called to offer my congratulations on the Mariners' fine showing this season."

Reese chuckled in return. "Why, thank you, Harold. It was a good season for us. Maybe next year will be even better."

"Indeed. Well, I must be going, John. I'll talk to you again soon."

The call ended. Reese stood and trod over to the window, checking the street outside, two stories below. Nodding at what he saw, he turned back to his desk. Still standing, he leaned over and typed several commands into his computer. The screen flickered and went dead. Rapidly, his face a blank, he reassembled the Sig and tucked it into his waistband at the back. He pulled the card from his phone and snapped it in half between his fingers. Then the phone itself thudded to the floor and there was a muted crunch as his heel shattered it. He grabbed his suit jacket from the back of the chair and in three long strides was out the door of South Manhattan Investigations and walking rapidly along the hallway to the fire escape at the back of the building.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Finch's next call was to Detective Carter. He nerved himself for this conversation: it was going to be exceptionally hard. Her phone rang three times before she answered it. "Carter."

"Detective. It's Harold here."

"Can you speak up, please, Harold? I can hardly hear you over the street noise."

"Yes, I had to find somewhere crowded and anonymous, Detective. I… I have some news for you."

"Oh yes?"

He found himself reluctant to speak, as though his words would end something and send them all off down another rabbit hole – which he supposed they would. He gulped. "Joss, I got an alarm from my system this afternoon. Someone had been prying into the affairs of South Manhattan Investigations."

There was silence from the other end of the phone.

"I followed the trail to try to ascertain who had been looking. And I found the trail led back to the CIA."

More silence.

"When I went into the Agency's internal network, I found that they have cracked John's identity and are tracking him now. I just had to call him to tell him he's burned." Finch drew another breath. "I'm terribly sorry, Joss. But John won't be coming home tonight. He's had to go off the grid, and it may be a day or two before we hear from him."

"I see," said Detective Carter at last. "Thank you for telling me, Harold." She sounded quite detached, quite composed.

"I just didn't want you to worry..." his voice died away as he realised just how ridiculous that sounded.

"No, I'm fine. I'm fine."

"You need to consider your own position, too, Joss. If they're aware of your relationship to John-"

"Thanks, Finch. I'll be careful."

"If you need to contact me, make sure it's using the VHF network or a burner phone. And be careful what you say aloud. Remember, they're-"

"-Listening with a million ears. Yes, I know, Finch."

"Goodbye, Detective."

"Goodbye, Harold."

After the call ended, Finch turned the burner phone over and over in his hands. Then he carefully removed the battery. Taking up the patient Bear's leash again, he moved off at his accustomed uneven walk, and dumped the phone in the next garbage bin he came to.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Reese took a second to check the tiny yard in back of the building before he opened the fire exit. A couple of dumpsters and, incredibly for Manhattan, two parking spaces - though God alone knew how the drivers actually manoeuvred their vehicles in and out. And a man half-hidden by one of the dumpsters, watching the fire escape.

Reese withdrew slightly. It didn't really matter. He tripped the fire alarm, conveniently located right next to the exit. He waited as the high-pitched wail started up. Doors along the corridor opened and a steady stream of accountants, notaries and small-time financial advisers began to make their way out of the building. He joined the crowds heading for the main exit. Mostly he just wanted witnesses, in case the Agency man outside had orders to retire him. He clattered down the stairs in the wake of a couple of well-dressed women, the pressure of the Sig in the small of his back merely an extra reassurance.

They all emerged into the watery sunshine on the street. In the distance Reese could hear sirens as the fire department responded to the alarm. Knots of people, variously confused, annoyed or resigned, cluttered the sidewalk. He didn't look at the guy across the road, the one he'd seen from his office window, who was still watching the building as he and the ladies walked past, but his peripheral vision showed the man peeling off to follow him. Reese was quite pleased. There was a conversation he wanted to have with the guy, and sooner was better than later.

He was confident he could evade the man in the courtyard he'd spotted from the fire escape, should he choose to join in, though again it didn't really matter. He was happy with odds of two to one. He picked up his pace a little, threading his way through the crowd. The Agency man would be ten or twenty yards behind him; no need to shake him off, so he just kept walking. Along the street, around the corner. Fewer people here, so he kept on until he found an alley. He ducked down it, taking an exaggerated look up and down the street to check for his tail, who for some unfathomable reason he completely failed to make. Halfway down the alley he pressed himself against the wall by another convenient dumpster, hoping the man's ego wouldn't allow him to draw the obvious conclusion until it was too late. Sure enough, the CIA guy came around the corner and began to make his way down the alley cautiously, but not cautiously enough. He stopped abruptly when he found himself staring into the wrong end of Reese's Sig, six inches away, right at eye level.

Reese found his eyebrows rising. "Jimmy Shannon," he said after a moment.

"John," said Shannon.

"I thought you were too good to be caught like this."

Shannon grimaced. "So did I," he said resignedly.

There was a long pause. Reese was content to let the silence stretch. Sometimes the best intel came that way. But Shannon was an old hand, and he knew that trick too. He simply stood there, waiting for Reese to make the next move.

"How?" whispered Reese at last.

Shannon blinked, and then smiled sadly. "I saw you a couple of nights ago. Out at the hospital in Queens, chasing an SIS guy we were tailing. Couldn't believe my eyes. How many lives do you have, John?"

Reese was silent.

"So, what happens next, John? You gonna off me for doing my job?"

"Nope." He stepped back a little, the gun still rock-steady and pointed right between Shannon's eyes. "But I do want to send a message. Sorry, Jimmy." He suddenly shifted his aim, put two shots neatly and efficiently into Shannon's lower legs, and then stepped over his writhing form. "Next guy comes after me, I aim for head and centre mass," he told the man. Pushing the gun back into his waistband, he walked to the mouth of the alley and away.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Joss arrived home to their empty apartment. She opened the door nervously, her service weapon in her hand, and didn't relax until she'd cleared every room. When she had finished, she stood in her living room listening to the silence as she put her gun away. She slumped down onto the sofa for a few minutes, but her own tension soon drove her to her feet again.

Restlessly she wandered back into the bedroom, and then through into the bathroom. There was a faint, lingering smell of John in the air, left over from his shower and shave that morning. His electric shaver was still out, left carelessly on the edge of the bathroom vanity. Mechanically she picked it up and put it back where it belonged in the medicine cabinet. A dusting of his shaved-off stubble could be seen in the basin; she pulled a cleaning cloth out of the drawer and began to wipe it out. The shower could do with a clean, too…

When she'd finished in the bathroom she found herself wending her way back through to the living room again. She didn't feel hungry, or tired, or even very upset. Numb, she decided, was the word. She suddenly remembered the time in Afghanistan when the vehicle in front of her had hit an IED. The bang, the gout of smoke, the shuddering slide as they'd pulled to a halt. The confusion of shouts and automatic weapons fire. She and a couple of others had gone forward with the medic and found a guy, just an ordinary grunt, sitting next to the canted-over Humvee. His left foot was missing. He was staring at the stump in surprise. He met Joss's eyes with honest incomprehension in his face. "Would you look at that, Ma'am," he said conversationally. "My fuckin' foot got blown off."

Joss decided that she knew now exactly what that man had been feeling. Which was not a damn thing.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Reese walked rapidly down the street away from his ambush. First priority: ditch his compromised ID. At the next trash container he paused and dug out his wallet. There was fifty dollars in cash, which he pocketed, but the rest would have to go. Joss smiled up at him from the photo he'd put in there. He pulled the picture out, intending to keep it. But then he thought again. Was it putting him in danger? Was it going to put her in even worse danger? It had been a huge self-indulgence to keep a photo of her in the first place. He hesitated a long, long moment. He could almost feel the tearing sensation in his chest as the scrap of paper slipped from between his fingers to disappear into the garbage along with the rest of his identity.

He turned and walked on. Next priority – visit one of his caches and stock up. He considered as he walked. Central Park was nearest, but required darkness and a shovel. Grand Central Station might be easiest. At the next subway station he walked briskly down the stairs and bought a card, and hopped the next train.

He changed trains twice, as extra insurance – even though he was sure he wasn't being followed. Finally he emerged at Grand Central Terminus and followed the crowds along the platform. At the men's toilets he ducked inside and reached up to the ceiling just inside the door, using his own body to block the door from opening again. Quickly he popped one of the ceiling panels. Groping a little, he fished out a package wrapped in black plastic and secured with duct tape, and dropped the ceiling panel neatly back into place. He retreated to a toilet cubicle to unwrap his prize: two thousand dollars in small bills, which was most of the physical bulk; another Sig and four clips of ammo; driver's licence and passport as John Wiley. Half the two thousand and the driver's licence went into his breast pocket, the rest back in the black plastic wrapping along with the Sig but not the ammo. He considered popping the ceiling panel again, but decided not to push his luck. Wadding up the wrapping and its contents, he stuffed them into his jacket under his arm where they were least noticeable and left the toilet.

Back on a train again, but this time he headed out of the downtown area and rode out to Crown Heights. A fleapit hotel for the night, he decided. In the morning, once he was absolutely one hundred ten percent certain that he'd shed his CIA watchers, he would buy a burner phone and make contact with Finch again. But as he sat in the brightly lit train his thoughts drifted to Joss. Riley was gone. So where did that leave him – whoever he was now? He wished he hadn't thrown away the photo.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

"Ms Shaw? I have some rather disturbing news," said Finch. Another difficult call, but it was getting towards evening now and he really couldn't put it off any longer.

"Yeah, Harold? What's happened, someone kidnapped John or something?" Ms Shaw's voice was flat and emotionless, just as usual. Yet not, somehow. Harold put that aside for now, though. One problem at a time.

"Not exactly," replied Harold. He still found Sameen very hard to read. "The CIA has realised that the rumours of John's death were greatly exaggerated. He's had to go off the grid to get away from them. I'm hoping we hear from him in the next day or so."

There was silence from Ms Shaw. "Okay, Harold. Thanks for letting me know," she said finally.

There was another silence. "Well, good evening, Ms Shaw. I must go now, I have some things I need to attend to," he said at last.

"Okay Harold. Good night." She ended the call, leaving Harold staring slightly surprised at his phone. Even by Ms Shaw's standards, that was...odd. Shaking his head, he put the phone away in his pocket. Time to go out again to some suitably anonymous spot to try to ascertain how much the CIA knew – or guessed – about John, and whether he'd been successful in evading them. He picked up his laptop, attached Bear's lead to the dog's collar, and left the subway, pulling the metal gate across as he went.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

It took Reese a long time to go to sleep in his damp and lumpy hotel bed that night. But in the end he was able to ignore the weird sounds of the plumbing, the traffic noises from the street and the occasional thump from the other side of the wall. He breathed deep, relaxed and dropped off.

The wedding was taking place in a garden. There was a white pergola with red roses rambling all over it, and under it there was Joss. She was wearing a gorgeous dress, all white lace with something sparkly dusted over the bodice. Her smile was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. He could see the roses and lilies in her bouquet. Janice was right beside her, her dress like a winter sunrise of pearl grey and gold, and she was smiling too. Finch, Fusco, Shaw, even some of their Numbers were part of the crowd. He saw Megan Tillman there, and Wendy MacNally. Darren McGrady smiled shyly and gave a little half wave from where he stood. He felt great himself, but as he approached the group he saw their smiles slip. Was something wrong? He looked down at himself and groaned. He wasn't dressed for a wedding! Mud-spattered boots, camouflage fatigue pants, a black t-shirt. His hands – they had gunshot residue all over them, ground into the skin even. He could smell his own body odour, which was always a bad sign, and then when he looked more closely at the t-shirt he realised with horror that there was brain tissue spattered on it. He tried to pick it off, but it wasn't working. When he glanced up again they had all vanished except for Joss, who was looking at him sadly. The roses were gone from the pergola, it was the dead of winter and around them gravestones stretched away, row after row, all the way to the horizon.

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

When Joss arrived at work the following morning Fusco caught her eye before she'd even reached her desk. He gestured urgently to her, picked up a piece of paper off his desk, and dragged her over to the cubby where the photocopier nested in the dark under the stairs up to the evidence lockup.

"Somethin's up, Carter," he said in a low voice. "Some chick arrived first thing this morning, closeted herself in with Moreno for a while, and then had me in there too. Grilling me about our mutual friend. They wanted to know all about how long he'd been on the force, when did he arrive, when did he leave – all that kind of stuff. I bet as soon as they see you, they'll have you in there too."

"What did you tell her?" Joss hissed back.

"I played dumb. Only got to know him when he transferred in from Narcotics. Didn't socialise much. Haven't seen him since he left." As he finished speaking Joss saw the captain coming out of her office. She jerked her head in Moreno's direction; Fusco followed her glance and pretended to insert his piece of paper into the copier. Carter gave Moreno an innocent smile as she walked over to her desk and pretended to get to work. But she could feel the captain's eyes boring into her.

"Detective Carter. Could you give us a few minutes, please?"

Joss raised her eyes to meet Moreno's, smiled politely and followed her into her office.

The woman in the office was tall, with blonde hair tied up in a slightly untidy ponytail. She rose from her seat as Carter entered, twitched a quick smile and then resumed her chair. Moreno didn't introduce the visitor, though. Once she was settled behind her own desk she simply gazed at Joss and said, "Detective, scuttlebutt has it that you know Detective Riley quite well. I need you to answer this lady's questions as fully and truthfully as you can."

The other woman shifted a little in her seat. "When did you first meet John Riley, Detective Carter?" she asked.

"Uhh...may I ask…?" Joss began, but Moreno cut her off.

"No, you may not. Begin, please, Detective."

"Well, I met him a couple of years ago, when I was working as an ADA after I was shot. I prosecuted a narcotics case of his."

"That would be People v Perez, would it, Detective?" said the woman, referring to a folder she had open on her knee.

"Yes, that's right," said Joss.

"Hm. And you're sure you never met him before that?"

"Not that I can recall. Before I was shot I was a homicide detective in this precinct. He was narcotics, we may have crossed paths in some context, but truthfully I can't recall any specific incident." There, that was as carefully vague as she could make it.

The blonde woman pursed her lips and appeared to be thinking. After a moment she said, "Detective Carter, I would very much appreciate it if you could accompany me to my office for a fuller conversation."

Joss began smilingly to refuse when the woman cut her off with an icy glare. "You will accompany me now, Detective, or I will return with a warrant. Believe me, it will be far, far easier on you if you cooperate with me."

Carter looked helplessly across at Moreno. The Captain looked very far from happy, but neither had she moved a muscle during this exchange. Joss didn't need to ask to see that Moreno didn't like this, but would make no move to prevent it. You're on your own, her body language proclaimed.

"Okay," said Joss. "I'll just get my bag."

The blonde woman stood up and followed her out of Moreno's office. Joss made it over to her desk and went through the pantomime of shutting down her computer and locking sensitive paperwork in her desk drawers while her escort waited impatiently. Fusco was keeping his eyes carefully on his own work, but as she picked up her bag to leave he glanced up at her just long enough for her to mouth "call Finch" at him. His mouth tightened in concern as she led the way out of the bullpen, her unwelcome guardian right behind her.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

"I'm telling you, Glasses, she never showed any ID. No name, no nothin' – I got marched in there and told to spill, and I bet Carter got the same treatment. Except she got taken away at the end of it." Fusco's voice sounded deeply worried. Disturbed, even. "What the hell is going on?"

Finch was back in the subway hideout, sitting stiffly upright at his desk. Thank God for the VHF network. It might have been originally conceived to hide them from Samaritan, but it was just as good at hiding them from the CIA.

"I think it's far more likely than not that Detective Carter has been pulled in by the CIA. John's old employers have gotten wind of the fact that he's still very much alive. John's underground for now, but evidently they've made the connection with Joss." There was a cold feeling in his stomach as he gave Fusco the bad news.

There was a long silence from the other end of the phone. "Jeez, Glasses. This is even worse than I thought. What's John gonna say?"

Finch shook his head slightly as he thought of this. "I can't begin to imagine, Detective."

"The last time Mr Happy went off the reservation he was half dead but he still raised hell. And that was just for revenge. If he goes looking for Carter to rescue her, he's gonna leave a trail of bodies all the way to Langley."

"I'm aware, Detective Fusco." Finch's lips were pressed together in a tight little line.

"So what are we going to do? We better have a plan ready whenever John resurfaces, because if he goes off on his own it'll get real ugly."

Finch's fingers were flying over the keyboard as he talked. "The first problem is to locate her, Detective."

"The CIA," said Fusco, finally beginning to process the whole situation. "They know about him. Shit."

Finch chuckled dryly. "I don't want to minimise the danger, Detective Fusco. But even though they know about John – they don't know about _me_."

POI*POI*POI*POI*

After sleeping the night in his underwear, Reese tried to coax a shower out of the unreliable plumbing of his fleapit hotel. Although the water was a good temperature, the pressure was almost nil. He would have got more effect standing in a good shower of rain, he decided as he dried himself with a thin towel. Better than nothing, though. He twitched his shirt on, ran his fingers through his hair in lieu of a proper combing, and left the room. First stop, he decided, a cheap menswear store for a change of clothes. Funny how working with Finch these last few years had changed him. When he was homeless he hadn't showered or changed his clothes in three months or more. But that guy was long gone. Fresh clothes each day were now something he took for granted.

Out on the street in the sunlight he sauntered along, tracing a haphazard path along the thronged sidewalk: kids on their way to school, moms out with babies in strollers going shopping, old ladies off to the park to feed the pigeons, or whatever old ladies did during their days… He was pretty sure there was no-one following him, but he gave it a good twenty minutes of walking, pretending to inspect shop windows, doubling back on his own tracks and then finally looping all the way back to the hotel. Nope, no tail. He allowed himself to relax just very slightly, and set off to find a fresh shirt, and that burner phone to call Joss and Finch.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Joss wasn't very surprised when her new best friend pulled the car up in front of a dilapidated warehouse in the Bronx. It seemed to be the last in a row of five – no reason for anyone to be passing by. A chain link fence separated the building from a strip of weed-covered waste land and then a busy road. Barred windows high up along the top of the walls: a single metal door set in the centre of the long expanse of scarred red brick. All the surrounding buildings seemed derelict. An unseasonably hot day was getting under way, and the morning sun reflected off pale concrete and glinted off dirty windows.

She got out of the car and gazed around. For the time being she would pretend to cooperate, she decided, because there was a good chance she could garner some information which might be useful to John. But there was no way in hell she was going to let this charade go on one moment longer than was necessary. The blonde woman got out and locked the car.

"Funny place for you to have an office," Joss couldn't resist remarking to her. But the woman just shrugged in reply. "In here," she said, gesturing towards the metal door. Joss turned and began to walk towards it. _I don't like the looks of this…_ She was suddenly glad of Finch's constant surveillance of her. _This might be harder to get out of than I thought._

Instead of the open space she'd been expecting behind the door, Joss found herself in a gloomy corridor which seemed to run the length of the building. What little light there was came from the doorways which opened off it on both sides. A suite of offices, put in at some time after the building had gone up. Grimy and well-used now, though. There was dirty grey carpet on the floor, threadbare and worn. The blonde woman pulled the door closed behind them, and then led her along the corridor. After ten yards or so she pushed one of the doors all the way open.

Joss looked around the office into which the blonde woman ushered her. It was cramped and cluttered, the walls a chilly pale blue. Dirty windows set high in the wall allowed some light in, but no view out. A battered grey metal filing cabinet sat in one corner behind the desk, with a disorderly pile of papers spilling off the top. The desk was likewise metal, battered and strewn with files, stray pieces of paper and a collection of pens, pencils and paper clips. But the chill in the air and the damp, musty smell made Joss instantly certain that this office was no-one's real workspace. This room had been undisturbed for weeks.

The woman sat behind the desk and gestured Joss into the scruffy vinyl covered chair in front of it.

"Let me tell you what we know, Joss," she said. "We know you spent about six months pursuing John Reese. You wanted to arrest him as a vigilante. But after a while he flipped you, and you started working for him. We know you got shot at the end of 2013, and we know you went into witness protection and presumably lost contact with him. We know that a year or so later you resumed contact, and that you now share an apartment. So that's what we know. What we _want_ to know, Joss, is how Reese flipped you. But mostly we want to know where he is right now, and we want you to help us locate him."

Joss sat, considering her reply. "'We' would be the CIA, right? I'm afraid I can't help you."

The blonde woman sighed. "Detective, I'm sure you can understand where we're coming from. This man is a highly trained, dangerous operative with few moral qualms. It's simply not safe for him to be running around New York."

Joss smiled a little to herself. Same old, same old. You'd think they would learn… "Yeah, he's seriously badass, that's for sure."

The woman's lips tightened. "He's a little more than that. He's a murderer many times over."

Joss said nothing, just raised her eyebrows a little.

Jen shook her head to herself. "Joss, I don't think you have any idea who it is you're sharing a home with. Did you ever read the Senate report on enhanced interrogation techniques?"

Joss's mouth tightened. "The executive summary, you mean. I did."

"Your lover was a willing participant in all that."

"Not willing." She knew she should stay silent in the face of the woman's provocation, but loyalty to John forced the words out.

"Are you sure about that? I can promise you, Joss, he delivered beatings, set dogs on prisoners, sexually humiliated them, threatened their families. Whatever he may have told you about his time with the CIA, that's the reality. Do you _like_ the idea of sleeping with a rapist?"

Joss could almost hear the tiny 'ping' as something in her brain snapped. "One thing you're forgetting here, whatever your name is. This ain't my first rodeo. I went through all this stuff with the late lamented Agent Snow. And if there's one thing he taught me, it's that there's a golden rule for dealing with the CIA." She leaned forward to emphasise her point. "The rule is, if your lips are moving, you're lying to me. Now if you want anything from me, you better go get your damn warrant. 'Cause I ain't saying one more word without a warrant, and my legal counsel present." She leaned back again. There was a long silence. Then the blonde woman gave a tiny smile.

"Okay, Detective Carter. Have it your way." She got out her phone. "Clay. Dupree. In here, please."

The door behind Joss opened. A black hood descended over her head before she had a chance to react.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this, Joss," came the woman's voice. "My name's Jen, by the way. I'm sure we'll be getting to know one another quite well over the next few days." Large hard hands took her firmly by the arms, hoisted her out of her chair, and marched her out of the door.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

"John." Finch felt a wave of relief sweep over him. "Thank goodness. I presume you've shaken off your observers?"

There was a slight chuckle over the phone. "I had a little chat with one of them. Hopefully I've sent them a message to keep clear of me."

"I'm afraid that had rather the reverse effect, Mr Reese. I need you to make your way to the subway as quickly as you can. We have a situation."

"Another Number?"

"Well, yes, but Sameen is looking into it right now, Mr Reese," said Finch. He glanced over to the subway car window where a photo was taped up. "Please, you need to get here as quickly as you can. Don't try to contact Detective Carter just yet. Just...just get here."

The pause from the other man was slightly puzzled. "On my way, then, Finch."

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Reese arrived at the subway hideout to find Finch there – no sign of Carter, though.

"Mr Reese! I'm so glad you're here!" Reese was a little taken aback at Harold's greeting. There was relief, but it seemed to be barely masking panic.

"What's up, Harold?"

Finch seemed to take a deep breath. "John, I want you to know I've found her. I know where she is. But I'm afraid this morning the CIA took Joss in for questioning."

There was a strange roaring in his ears. He was struck completely dumb.

"Here," said Finch, bringing up a map on his computer screen. "She's been there about half an hour so far."

Reese craned his neck to look over Finch's shoulder at the screen. "I know where that is, Finch. It's a CIA black site. Old abandoned warehouse." His jaw was set, because he now knew more or less exactly what was happening to Joss. "I've got to get there." He shot the words over his shoulder as he strode rapidly across the platform.

"I'm calling Detective Fusco, he'll meet you there," Finch called back to him.

Reese gave him a tense, unfelt smile, and quickened his pace.

To be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This chapter is for SWWoman and Blacktop who so kindly left reviews for the previous two chapters. Thanks!**

The disorientation of being in the black hood didn't last long. She was being hoisted up bodily, placed on some firm, wide, padded surface and strapped down. She didn't bother to struggle. Her mind was working fast. This whole situation had gone completely sideways… the moment that black bag came down over her head the CIA had really broken every rule in the book. They would never let her go now. There was no way this ended without a bullet to the back of her head, or being rendered to some deep, dark hole somewhere. So the only thing to do now was to endure, and hope for rescue. Because they hadn't taken her phone. She consoled herself with the mental image of Finch poised over his keyboard, tapping and clicking away until he found her. Once she had been exasperated by his surveillance. Not any more. _You are being watched… watch me now, Finch,_ she thought. _Watch_ _over_ _me now_.

The bag was yanked off. She was lying on a table in another grimy room. Dirty white-painted walls, light coming from more filthy windows, supplemented by a single bare bulb. A depressing combination of gloom and glare. There didn't seem to be any other furniture in the place, apart from a chair – Jen was sitting next to her head. She could hear the small shuffling sounds of Jen's two goons, waiting somewhere out of her line of sight.

Jen stared down at her expressionlessly. "Okay, Joss. This is where you tell me what I want to know. Last chance before things get messy."

Joss sighed. "Right now I don't know anything. And even if I did, there is no way on God's green earth I would tell you."

The blonde woman shrugged. "Your funeral."

Joss wished she didn't feel the urge to take Jen literally. "Tell me something, Jen. Do you have children?"

The CIA woman gave her another emotionless stare. "No."

"Huh. Then you have a problem."

Jen raised one eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. Because you know something about giving birth? It hurts like hell. Even at the best of times, and my son's delivery wasn't a good one."

"So what?"

"It's just that it means there's not a lot you can do to me, short of killing me, that'll be worse than that. So whatever you're going to do, get on with it. It's only pain, after all."

It was impossible to tell whether this speech had hit home. Jen simply shrugged. Then she hit a lever somewhere near the ground with her foot, and the table lurched backwards so Joss's feet were higher than her head. One of the men reappeared in her field of vision holding a towelling pad and a bottle of water.

"Waterboarding?" Joss scoffed, though her heart sank. "Is that the best you got?"

"No," replied Jen. "But I bet it'll be enough."

Joss took a deep breath, and set her teeth.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

At first she tried to hold her breath, feeling the cold of the water invading her nose, pooling in the back of her throat and making her want to gag. But it wasn't long before she had to exhale, and try to inhale again, and then it got really bad. She was gagging, choking… when the cloth was removed her breath came in searing gasps. She tried to swallow the vomit which was making its way up her gullet. She was aware of warmth at her crotch, travelling along her back. _Oh,_ _dear_ _God. I wet myself._ Merciless hands shoved the cloth back over her face.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Fusco took up his position just behind Wonderboy's right shoulder. He'd given long and earnest thought as to the safest place to be whenever he ended up tagging along on one of these junkets. _Not there at all_ was the truest answer, of course, but failing that, behind the right shoulder was best, Mr Sunshine being left-handed and all. You wanted to leave him room on that side, though actually he seemed just as happy using either hand. The one place you really _didn't_ want to be, was anywhere between him and his target.

So he had a great view of John picking the lock, easing the door open and then taking point as they moved down the dark corridor inside the old warehouse. There were doors to both left and right, but Wonderboy seemed to know where he was going, so Fusco concentrated on making sure no-one got the drop on them from any of those doorways. As usual, he wished he had eyes in the back of his head. Some backup would be nice too, but Fusco had learned long ago not to eat his heart out over _that_ one. Not with these guys.

There was light leaking around the door at the very end of the gloomy corridor. When they reached it, John raised his hand for silence. The thin door didn't do much to block out the noises coming from inside. Fusco kind of wished they'd just burst straight in, because the sounds coming from in there weren't pleasant. A bubbling, gurgling noise, the sounds of water splashing on something. Then as they listened in dismay, choking, sobbing breaths.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

She was wrong, she saw that now. This was way worse than giving birth to Taylor. Pain with a purpose, that was what they'd called labour pains. What was the purpose here? She couldn't remember any more. This wasn't pain, it was a gasping, vomiting, choking desperation. No air, no air! A roaring in her ears like static as she twisted and writhed against the straps holding her to the table, trying to cough as drops of water or vomit or _something_ made their way into her lungs. But there was no air. She was falling, falling into darkness- the cloth was jerked away. Air again. Coughing, trying to control her heaving stomach. More breaths.

"Tell us where he is, Joss. Or we'll start again." Jen was sitting next to her head, her expression neutral.

"I don't know." Was that her voice?

The cloth appeared again. She began to struggle against the straps. "I don't know! I really don't!"

Her frantic cries died as the cloth was shoved over her nose and mouth again.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Reese bent to murmur in Fusco's ear. "They're waterboarding her," he said rapidly in a low voice. "There'll be two to four bad guys in that room, Lionel. I'll take care of them, but your job is to get her face clear the second we get in the room, okay?" The ferocious look in his eyes, like a wild animal, made Lionel awful glad he wasn't one of those bad guys. There was gonna be blood on the walls over this one, oh yeah. And for once, Fusco was in total agreement with Tall, Dark and Deranged. Bring it on.

Reese kicked the door in with one swift movement and then flowed into the room, shooting as he went. Fusco had his weapon raised too, but as he entered the room he tried to ignore everything else in favour of the woman strapped to the tilted table, a wet cloth covering her face. There was a plastic water bottle on the floor, slowly disgorging its contents in a spreading puddle; the guy who had been holding it was sliding down the wall leaving a long smear of blood and grey matter behind. As Fusco watched, the dead man reached the floor and slumped there against the wall. But there was no time to take in any further details. Fusco wasn't even sure how he crossed the three or four yards to Joss's side, but suddenly he was there, grabbing clumsily for the stained wet cloth covering Carter's nose and mouth.

As he yanked it off she took a shuddering breath and opened her eyes. He could see the pounding of her heartbeat in the arteries on the side of her neck; she was coughing convulsively. He fumbled at the straps which were holding her on that damned table. "Hey, Carter. It's okay. We got you. We got you," he found himself muttering over and over. He got her free of the straps and searched for some way to get the table back level. A heave and a clunk and it was locked into place, no longer tilted. Carter was moving feebly, and so he called on his old first responder training and pulled her into a recovery position. Only then did he have the leisure to look over his shoulder.

As well as the dead guy at his feet, there was another CIA bastard slumped on his face in an untidy heap in another corner of the room. As Fusco watched, the guy twitched and shuddered. There was a rapidly spreading pool of blood coming from under him. Probably shot right through a major artery. Too late to do anything, even assuming he had the inclination to try. John was standing over the third figure – the tall blonde woman from this morning. He'd grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her up against the wall. She was still alive, though she'd caught some blood spatter from one or both of her henchmen. Reese had his Sig jammed right in the woman's face, and Fusco could see her eyes wide open and rolling in fear. There was a truly crazed look in John's eyes, and Fusco could see Wonderboy's knuckles showing white as the fingers of his right hand ground into the woman's shoulder. She whimpered as his left forefinger tightened on the trigger.

Fusco cleared his throat. "Hey. John."

Reese's nostrils flared. He seemed to be ignoring Lionel. The finger continued to tighten.

"Wonderboy. Time to stop."

But it was no use. The crazy look didn't change one bit. He tried one last time.

"Listen to me. We got no backup, and we gotta get Carter out of here. Snap out of it, Wonderboy, and come and help me with Joss."

Really Lionel couldn't work out why he was even trying to save Blondie's life, but somehow it didn't seem right for her to be gunned down by Reese. Not like that, anyhow.

"John." The voice was hoarse and breathless, but it seemed to snap Reese out of whatever little world he was trapped in. He didn't slacken his grip on the woman, but he turned his head to meet Joss's eyes. Lionel heaved a sigh of relief.

"Kill her. Kill the bitch." Carter had lifted her head. Her eyes were blazing, and she was shaken by another series of racking coughs.

Like a robot Reese turned his head back towards the helpless woman. His lips peeled back in a smile so devoid of any human quality at all that Lionel felt sick to his stomach.

"Hey. Wonderboy. You gotta stop. Remember? You help people. You don't kill them any more." Lionel cast a glance at the two dead bodies on the floor. "At least, not like this you don't."

There was a long, long moment in which Reese continued to hold the panting woman in a vice-like grip. But then he seemed to relax. The finger came off the trigger. Slowly, one by one, his fingers released her and allowed her to slide down the wall to sit in a huddle on the floor.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Finch was sitting at his desk. He'd heard the gunshots, the thuds and laboured breathing as Reese and Fusco went about their business. Joss sounded simply awful, terrible. Waterboarding! Finch's gut tightened as he imagined the scene. Thank God, Detective Fusco had once again acted as a choke chain on Mr Reese. It seemed safe now for him to break in on the scene.

"Mr Reese. May I suggest you collect Detective Carter and pull out. I'm monitoring the police bands, and someone in an adjacent building has reported shots fired."

"Okay, Finch. I'm bringing this Company woman with us, though." Mr Reese's voice had its usual calm, clinical tone, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"Are you sure of that, John? It might make for some unneeded complications."

"Right now we have one single, solitary thing going for us, Finch. We have one of theirs. We might be able to find some way to use that to get the Agency off our backs."

Finch paused for thought. Then he sighed and nodded his head slightly. "I see your point, John. But we can't have her at the safe house. It'll have to be a hotel room. Not the Coronet, either. Get out of there, and I'll send you an address as soon as I've arranged something."

"Okay. I can always disappear her afterwards if we change our minds."

Finch gulped. "I sincerely hope you're joking, Mr Reese."

Mr Reese didn't reply.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

The motel Finch had arranged for them was carefully anonymous. Not top-of-the-range, but not a rent by the hour type of place either. Shaw was waiting for them there, her doctor's bag in hand. Joss was still coughing every so often, her eyes were watering and she was pale and sweaty. Shaw looked concerned.

"Shit, Joss. Come and lie down before you go into shock." She hustled Joss into a bedroom while Reese and Fusco frogmarched the CIA woman in from the car. She still seemed to be stunned by her sudden change of fortune; well, she'd be getting a whole lot more stunned pretty soon, Reese thought grimly. Fusco might have saved her life, but Reese was going to have no qualms at all about squeezing this subject as hard has he needed to. Maybe even giving her a taste of her own medicine. He found zip ties in his pocket and pushed her into a chair while Fusco closed the door. The woman flinched as the sunshine outside was abruptly cut off when the door shut with a sold 'thunk'.

"John." Shaw had emerged from the bedroom and was speaking to him in a low voice. "We need to get Joss to a hospital. She's aspirated something – could be water, could be vomit. But if she doesn't get treated fast, there could be real trouble."

"Trouble?" he murmured back.

"Trouble. Pneumonia-type trouble," she clarified.

Shit. "Call Finch, see what he can work out. Maybe he can get her in somewhere with a fake identity."

"Will do." Shaw faded back into the bedroom.

"I heard, Mr Reese," came Finch's voice through his earpiece. "I'm putting in a call to Dr Enwright. I'll let you know when I've worked things out."

Reese turned his attention back to the woman in the chair. "Jen's your name, right?" He fixed her with his interrogator's stare: very calm, very neutral, completely indifferent to any plea or prayer the subject might produce. "Okay, Jen. Now you can tell me why the Agency is still after me."

A muscle in the the woman's jaw worked. "Because there weren't supposed to be survivors of the Ordos thing-"

"Yeah, Ordos." Reese settled himself in a chair facing the woman. "But Ordos was five years ago. Old news. Why the big furore now?"

Jen hesitated, swallowed. "Having you running round is an embarrassment to the Agency."

Reese stuck his feet out, simulating a posture of relaxed ease. He pursed his lips. "Plenty of things the Agency has done have been embarrassing. The Bay of Pigs. Castro's exploding cigars. Extraordinary renditions. Waterboarding, even. It survived. Damn sure it'll survive one ex-agent trying to turn an honest dollar in New York."

Jen snorted. "Yeah, if that was what you were doing." She glared at him. "But you're not, are you."

"Careful, Mr Reese," came Harold's voice.

"I'm not?" He raised one eyebrow.

"You sure weren't making money off that fake private detective's agency, anyway."

Reese shrugged his shoulders. "It was a start-up. You don't expect to make money off a start-up, not at first."

"Huh. I saw the way your identity was built. Layers on layers. Some serious computer know-how, there."

Reese smirked a little. "Maybe I'm just that good."

Jen snorted. "You wish. I saw your file from when you worked for us. You've got a great skill-set, but not that one."

"You might be surprised at how far I've come since I left the Agency, Jen," said Reese. His smile faded. "I admire your attempt to take control of the interrogation, but you need to remember who's tied up at the moment." He paused to let this sink in. "Why is the Agency suddenly after me again?" He repeated his question in the same polite, neutral tone of voice, the one which said, I'm going to keep asking this question over and over until I get an answer.

Jen gave him a defiant look, exhaled deeply, and was silent.

To be continued….


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: The redoubtable Chellero has been demanding more... Okay then... here you go...**

As Reese sat in the motel room glaring at Jen, Finch's voice came through his earpiece again.

"I've arranged an identity for Joss. And Dr Enwright has been able to clear her schedule for this afternoon."

"Good. Shaw and Fusco can take her there while I continue my little chat with Jen here."

There was a pause from Finch. When he spoke again he sounded resigned. "Mr Reese, please remember. We _save_ lives."

"Her life's not in danger, Finch." Even though it damn well should be, he thought savagely. "But I need to find out what the hell is going on. Then maybe we can-" fix things, he had been going to say. But it didn't look very fixable right now. "-figure out what to do next," he finished.

There was a sigh from his earpiece. "Very well, Mr Reese. I'll keep you posted on how Joss is doing once we know."

"You do that, Finch."

The door to the bedroom opened, and Joss shuffled out, supported by Shaw. Fusco darted a concerned glance at his partner and moved across to help with her. Joss's breathing seemed a little less laboured than before, though as Reese watched she was shaken by another bout of coughing. He couldn't control his flinch. For a second he was caught up in a memory, a flashback almost, to the horrible days when her lung problems had threatened everything. But he schooled his features into an encouraging smile for her. She acknowledged it with a tiny nod, and as the group moved past him she reached out and touched his shoulder. A fleeting contact, but one that said "I'm okay. It's all going to be okay" as loudly as if she'd shouted it to him. Reese watched as the knot of people negotiated the doorway, Joss's head silhouetted against the bright sunshine, before the door closed on them. He turned his attention back to the woman in the chair in front of him.

There was a long silence as he considered the best way to approach this particular subject. He wasn't, in truth, the very best interrogator – at least, not when denied the more rough-and-ready ways of persuading someone to talk. As his anger ebbed away he felt a little less inclined to turn Jen inside out, and he was pretty sure that if he tried Finch would be on his case. But as the silence stretched it was Jen who broke it.

"You're in love with her, aren't you," she said abruptly, jerking her head to towards the door through which Joss had exited.

He favoured her with a long, cool look before inclining his head.

The silence stretched again.

"When did you realise you'd joined the bad guys?" he asked at last.

Jen drew herself up in her chair, as best she could. "The Agency isn't the bad guys. We protect people from the bad guys," she said stiffly.

Reese allowed himself a grim smile. There were so very many responses he could make to that one…!

"Yeah, that's what they told me too," he said softly. "But seriously. Less than an hour ago you were waterboarding a US citizen, on US soil, without any legal sanction at all. How do you justify that to yourself?" He found himself genuinely curious, although he had a very good idea of the thought process which led to such events.

"We needed to find you," Jen said. With just a touch less certainty?

"Which brings me back to my original question. Why am I such hot property? After all this time?"

She shifted in her chair, as much as the zip ties would let her. "I don't know."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Really. I don't know."

More silence. "Hunting traitors, or terrorists, that I was totally on board with," he said softly. "But the problem came when we were just treated as weapons. Pointed at someone and fired. Like a gun or a missile. Even that wouldn't have been so bad if the people aiming us had had some kind of, of _moral compass_ worth a damn."

Jen had her eyes closed. Trying to shut him out, or listening really hard?

"Day came when the Agency turned on me. We really are just objects, tools, to them, Jen. The second you're past your usefulness, they'll cast you off. But even that I could live with if only I could have trusted that what they were doing was _right_. Except it wasn't – not for me then, not for you now. They're using you, Jen. And they're not even using you for a good purpose."

Jen took a long breath in, held it for a moment, and then let it out in a long, soft exhalation.

"Late at night a week or so ago Jim Shannon sent in a photo he'd taken out in Queens, at an aged care facility," she said quietly. "He was certain it was you, and when we ran the picture through the system it confirmed it. Julian Casey put me onto it, and I hunted down as much of your bio as I could. I wanted to bring you in pretty much immediately, but the DD nixed it when Julian took it to him. Said we should let you run for the time being. But when you suddenly dropped off the grid all hell broke loose upstairs, and I was sent to try to get a location on you out of your girlfriend there. I was authorised to use any means at my disposal. And that's all I know."

Reese looked at her for a long time. She met his gaze squarely, almost defiantly. At last he pulled out his knife. Ignoring her sharp intake of breath he began cutting her zip ties.

"Okay. You can go now."

She looked at him, confused. "What?"

"I said, you can go now. You've told me what you know."

"Um, an hour ago you were ready to kill me."

He stilled at that. "Oh, yes. And make no mistake, Jen. If you ever come near me or Joss again – I will kill you. My friend won't be able to save you a second time."

She stilled in her turn. "If the Agency really is like you say it is, you already have killed me. If I go back to them..."

He shrugged and continued to cut the zip ties. "That's your problem, not mine."

"Your friend said you don't kill people any more. You help them." She put a hand on his sleeve. "So help me now."

He froze at her words. Then he let out a long breath. Shaking his head slightly, he touched his earpiece. "Finch? I have a little problem here..."

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Harold was not at all pleased to see Jen at the safe house. He dragged Mr Reese aside and hissed in his ear, "Are you quite sure about this, John? She's from your old employers! A couple of hours ago she was waterboarding Joss!"

Mr Reese looked calm, as usual. "You heard her, Harold. If she goes back to the CIA they'll never trust her again. And that likely means they'll retire her, sooner or later."

"Trust. Trust! So that automatically means _we_ can trust _her_?"

Mr Reese looked away from Harold and seemed to be staring into the middle distance. A muscle in his jaw worked. "We save people, Finch. We don't judge them, right? I'm trying real hard right now not to think about what she did to Joss." He turned back to face Harold. "I think she's for real. Yeah, I know I can't be certain, but… I think she gets it. How she's been used. I'm willing to take a chance on this one."

Harold gave a sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "If you're sure, then, John..."

"Sure as I can be. Not certain, but sure enough. I'll keep an eye on her."

"You'd better," said Harold grimly. "We keep her at the safe house, and we don't mention the Machine."

Mr Reese twitched an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, yeah. I know the drill, Harold."

Harold gave him a hard look in return.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

It was very quiet in the safe house that evening.

Finch was sitting at the dining table with his laptop, typing and clicking away as usual. Reese had stretched out on the sofa, just back from a visit to Joss at the clinic where she was holed up under a false identity. He had been shaken to see her intubated and hooked up to every monitor in creation. Seemingly they had tried to tilt the bed downwards to help the gunk she'd inhaled to drain from her lungs, but she'd panicked and so they'd sedated her. After a couple of hours sitting holding her hand the staff had gently moved him on, suggesting that he come back in the morning when she was conscious again.

Jen was sitting in an armchair. She'd paced around a lot at first, and finally selected _Pride and Prejudice_ from the book shelf and settled herself to read.

"Mr Reese," said Finch suddenly. "I've just noticed something rather peculiar. The Deputy Director of the CIA, Tom Talbot – he's accessed your file nearly fifty times in the last two days."

Jen looked confused. "But Julian Casey was running this case. Why would the DD be doing that?"

Reese sat up, staring into space. "Fifty times in two days – that's obsessive. This must be his own private project. Nothing to do with the Agency, really. It's personal."

"It's not paranoia if they're really trying to get you," murmured Finch, his mouth twitching into a humourless smile.

"Why the hell would the Deputy Director of the CIA be running some sort of personal vendetta against me?" Reese's brow was furrowed.

Finch was busy at his keyboard. "I am trying to ascertain exactly that, Mr Reese." There was a long pause, punctuated by the clatter of the keys. "This may take a while," he added abstractedly. Reese snorted to himself and pulled out his phone to check for any messages from Fusco.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

It was only after several fruitless hours that Finch finally threw in the towel. "There's nothing in any of the digital sources on Talbot which suggests the slightest connection with you, John," he said, taking his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose. "He was a White House lawyer for more than fifteen years, and he didn't even join the Agency until after you, um, left. There's nothing at all to link him to you, or any of your associates while you were there."

Reese greeted this with a frustrated grimace. "Well, that leaves us with only one option."

"What's that?" asked Finch.

"I'll just have to go ask him."

"You _what_?" Finch was staring at him in horror. "You're just going to walk into his office at Langley and sit down for a chat? Are you out of your mind?"

Reese was unperturbed. "Jen here can get me in, I bet. And I'm not too concerned with my ability to hold off some bureaucrat."

"It's not the bureaucrat which worries me, it's the building full of Agency personnel, some of whom will recognise you, and all of whom will be quite ready to kill you!"

"There won't be that many who recognise me, Harold. Mark and Kara are dead, Jen's here with us. I hospitalised Jim Shannon yesterday. I spent most of my time out of the country, more than five years ago. The HQ staff are very unlikely to know my face, and flattering as it is to the Agency, not everyone in HQ is a trained killer. That just leaves Casey. If I pick my time I should be able to get in and out no problems."

Finch was sitting with his head in his hands. "How are you managing to make complete insanity sound so reasonable?" he muttered plaintively.

Reese turned to Jen.

"If you're going to ramraid Talbot's office – speaking figuratively, of course – the best time would be a Tuesday morning," she said. "He's notorious for turning up very early that day – before dawn, a lot of the time. There's a Heads of Departments meeting at 09:30 each Tuesday, so he'll be in his office preparing for that."

Reese nodded. "So it needs to be tomorrow, or we have to wait another week."

"Talbot's office is only two floors up in the OHB – the Old Headquarters Building," said Finch.

Reese cocked an eyebrow at him. "I know what the OHB is, Harold," he said softly. "I used to work for them, remember?"

"Yes, and for some unfathomable reason you're suddenly eager to walk into their maw," said Harold peevishly. "Be that as it may," he continued before Reese could reply to this, "only authorised vehicles can even approach CIA headquarters so you will be dependent on Jen to get you down that road and into the building." He glared at the woman. "I can offer you a deal, Jen. I'll manufacture a new identity for you. You get John into the OHB, and out again safely, and you get a new start somewhere a long way away."

"You were the guy who generated that Riley identity?" Jen looked surprised.

"Actually, no," said Finch reluctantly. "That was someone else. But I can assure you, you'll have no cause for complaint at my work."

Jen considered for a moment. "Okay. You got yourself a deal."

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Under the trees overhanging the private road leading from the George Washington Parkway to the George Bush Center for Intelligence at Langley, the predawn twilight was dulled to almost total darkness. The journey from New York had been a silent one. Reese fingered the visitor ID for the CIA's headquarters which Finch had cooked up on such short notice, clipped to his lapel. Jen seemed to be concentrating on her driving. Of course, there was the possibility – the strong possibility if he was honest with himself – that she was about to deliver him up to the Agency. But he'd been observing her ever since he suggested the idea of going in here, and he wasn't picking up a single vibe to arouse his suspicions. So either she was very good, or he was safe. Or he was getting rusty and about to pay the price, he thought to himself wryly.

They emerged from the trees and drove around the perimeter of the complex to the parking lot. Exfil was going to be a bitch from over here, but Jen couldn't exactly park out the front. They'd played around with various plans involving taking to the woods and rendezvousing back on the main road. In the end they'd settled on a couple of plausible scenarios and agreed to leave it fluid. Hooray for detailed mission planning, he thought sourly. But there were too many possibilities to plan for, really. Maybe Finch had been right about this, but it was too late now, he thought as they got out of the car.

They made their way to a side entrance, and Jen swiped her card and nodded to the guard while Reese casually flashed his visitor ID. They were through in moments, and strolling down the corridor. Reese stuck his hands in his pockets and shortened his stride to match Jen's. After a few minutes they came to a bank of elevators and stopped.

"The DD's office is up that elevator, left and then right," said Jen. "If you can get out unseen, I'll meet you at the Kryptos sculpture. If things go sideways I'll collect the car and park off the road a hundred yards before the junction with the Parkway and wait till I hear from you."

Reese nodded and turned to the elevator.

"Good luck," he heard Jen say softly, but he pretended not to hear as the doors closed on him.

To be continued….


	5. Chapter 5

When the elevator doors opened again he emerged into a bland corridor – buff-coloured walls and a slightly darker carpet, subdued lighting and abstract art on the walls. He could hear a vacuum cleaner being run a long way off. He turned left along the passageway and then took the first right. The door to the Deputy Director's outer office was propped open – maybe by the cleaner who'd been through during the night. The sun was just rising off to the east, and a small breeze was stirring the branches of the tree outside the window. He took a deep breath, tapped on the door of Talbot's office, and waited for a noise from within.

"Come," came the man's tones. He sounded a little surprised. Reese opened the door. Talbot was seated at his desk, a manila folder open in his hands. He looked up and froze when he saw Reese. The combination of emotions which flickered across his face was very hard to read – surprise, rage, glee… grief?

He moistened his lips, put down the file and said, "Well."

Reese came a little further into the office. "You've been looking for me."

"Oh, yes," breathed the DD. His expression had settled down now. He looked avid, gazing at Reese like an alcoholic gazes at a bottle of Scotch.

Reese seated himself in one of the chairs in front of the desk. "I want to know why."

Talbot leaned back in his chair. "And I want to tell you, John. You have no _idea_ how much I want to tell you." There was a tight little smile on his face. He paused a moment longer and then said abruptly, "In 2008 you and your bitch partner picked up a package in New York. A man who'd supposedly sold software secrets to the Chinese." Talbot opened a desk drawer and pulled a photo out. He passed it across the desk to Reese. "This man."

Reese took the photo. A big, blonde guy with piercing blue eyes grinned at him. He didn't really recognise the man – hadn't looked at his face much, though he remembered the mission.

"You rendered him somewhere, and I've never seen or heard from him again." There was grief in the DD's voice, unmistakably.

Reese looked up at him, his eyes narrowing. "You were lovers."

There were tears in Talbot's eyes. "He was smart, and witty, and kind. We'd been together for fifteen years. Very quietly, but we managed. And you people took him from me." His expression hardened. "No one knew I had any connection with a supposed traitor, so after he disappeared I kept working at the White House. Eventually I got appointed here. Got access to the files. And so I came across the whole story. I was pleased as hell when I read about the Ordos thing. Poetic justice. When you came back, well, I watched and waited. Mark Snow was on to you, I was going to let him take you out and then engineer some fitting end for him. In the end you both disappeared. The Feds thought you'd died in the explosion."

Reese sat quietly. He allowed his gaze to wander around the room: the framed prints on the walls, the morning sun flickering through the branches of the tree outside the window. Books on the shelves: _Jane's Intelligence Watch Report_ , _Combat Fleets of the World_ , _Fundamentalisms and Society_. Neat stacks of _The Economist_ and _Jane's Defence Weekly_ on a credenza at the side. A clock on the wall behind him ticked loudly. He'd always known his past would eventually catch up with him; somehow he'd always imagined it would be in a hail of bullets, not a quiet office in Langley.

There was the soft sound of a drawer opening. He glanced back up at the figure at the desk. Talbot was still sitting there, but rigid now. With a gun in his hand, pointed at Reese.

It was a stupid little gun. Talbot was one of those tall, gangling types with big hands, and the gun was too small for him, enveloped in his great paw. Reese couldn't even tell what it was at first glance. Some piece of crap with a two-inch barrel, so inaccurate it might miss even at this short range. He mapped out in his head what would happen next: a lightning lunge across the desk, left hand batting the gun aside before closing around Talbot's right wrist with enough force to fracture the bones, while the right hand went for… the eyes or the throat? The throat, he thought, probably; he would want Talbot in decent condition so he could...do what? He realised that he didn't know what came next. Hole up in the office of the Deputy Director of the CIA, with the DD as a hostage? Try to get him out of the building – to where? And for what purpose? As he sat there he noticed that the usual surge of adrenaline and endorphins which slowed time and allowed him to dance through a fight was absent. His heart was still beating in its usual slow, sure rhythm. He felt a dull lassitude, a kind of relaxation of all his muscles, steal over him. He realised that for the first time he had met someone who had a perfect right to kill him.

The Deputy Director was waiting for him to respond. Reese took a deep breath, and then let it out in a long sigh. "I was following orders. Not that that makes any difference. There's always a choice. Just not a very good one, sometimes." His voice sounded softly in his own ears. He found himself looking down, not at his hands or even his knees, focussing instead on some point in the air just below the edge of the desk. "I did a lot of bad things. Maybe I should have died in Ordos, or in the bomb blast three years ago. Since then I've tried to make up for it. Tried to atone. But I can't ever..." his voice trailed off. He raised his eyes to meet the DD's. "I never did have the guts to try and find anyone I'd harmed from those days with the Agency. Try to make amends directly. So I guess it's fitting. That I'm sitting here." He drew another deep breath and spread his hands. "So here I am. You can do what you like with me. I'm done running." He closed his eyes and waited.

The silence in the room became so profound that he could feel it pressing on his ears: an immense weight, like being at the bottom of the ocean.

There was a muted thump from the desk: the gun dropping onto the blotter.

"I really want to shoot you," came Talbot's voice. "I've wanted to for years."

Reese said nothing.

"But now I just can't. Is that weakness? But it wouldn't bring him back."

Reese said nothing.

"So I'm going to let you go. On one condition."

Reese opened his eyes again. The Deputy Director was gazing at him with a scorching intensity. "You find him. Bring him back if he's alive. Tell me what happened if he's not."

Very slowly Reese nodded, and let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Jen was waiting for him by the sculpture, just like she'd said she would. They walked quietly back towards the parking lot. The sun was well up now, and the office staff were arriving to begin their day. Jen had shaken her hair loose from the pony tail and finger-combed the blonde mane so it lay partly over her eyes. Probably a fruitless attempt to disguise herself, but then she'd only been missing a day or so, and even if she was recognised she might be able to bluff her way out of it. But they made it back to her car without incident. Then it was back along the private road and out onto the Parkway. And heading north to New York. As he stretched his legs out Jen glanced across at him. "Find out what you needed?"

"Yup."

"Are you free now?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"So… I can take my ID and go."

"Yup."

There was a long pause as she negotiated a sweeping curve in the road and blew past a sixteen-wheeler.

"Wish I could go back, you know," she said suddenly. "Maybe it's not as bad as you say."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Your choice, I guess." He really didn't feel like talking.

There was another pause.

"I guess you can't go back, though. Can't unlearn what you've learned."

"Nope." He ignored her after that, and pretended to be asleep.

When they got back through the tunnel and into Manhattan he roused himself – that sleep had ended up being perfectly genuine – and directed her through the traffic to the safe house. Finch was waiting there, outside on the side walk looking anxious. Reese got out of the car and made way for Harold, who passed a thick yellow envelope to Jen. She tossed it onto the passenger seat without opening it.

"I guess it's goodbye, then," she said.

"Sure is," said Reese. He leaned back in through the window and said very quietly, "Remember what I said. Never come near me or Joss again."

Jen nodded, looking daunted. Reese backed out and straightened. She was pulling her car out into traffic again as he turned and followed Harold inside.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

There was good news when they got back indoors. Shaw had been in consultation with Dr Enwright. There was no sign of infection in Joss's lungs, and the aspirated material appeared to have all drained out during the last twenty-four hours. The consensus was that Joss was recovering well and could be released from hospital that evening.

But Harold listened sombrely to Reese's account of his interview with Talbot.

"Are you sure you can trust him? Will he really leave you alone if you return his lover to him? Or, as seems more likely, if you can only bring him news of the man's eventual fate?"

Reese gave a tiny shrug. "He sure had his chance there in his office. If he was going to kill me, he would have by now."

"So we now have to work out how to find the man, if he can be found, and how to bring him home." Harold was frowning.

"Well, you have a job, Mr Finch. Never said it'd be easy."

"Very funny." Harold was unimpressed. "Perhaps after you collect Detective Carter from hospital you should bring her to the subway. We can discuss things in more detail there."

POI*POI*POI*POI*

"His name is – or was – Daniel Marriott. He was rendered to Morocco. Rabat. And that's about all we know," said John.

"If the CIA had anything on him, Talbot would have found it," said Finch, leaning towards his computer and beginning to type. Bear was curled up on his bed while Finch sat at his computer station and John, Joss and Sameen nursed coffees, sitting in a loose half-circle around him.

"Morocco's digital record-keeping is patchy, but there might be something I can uncover." The other three exchanged resigned glances as Finch began his hack.

"Fortunately," added Finch, pausing for a moment, "their firewalls are...pathetic, really. Ah, I'm in." He leaned forward again.

"O-kay...an American prisoner arrives in 2008. Actually, a number of prisoners arrive in 2008. A busy year for your employers, John." He failed to notice Reese's pained look.

"Here he is, though. Daniel Marriott. Arrived July 24th. He enjoyed the hospitality of the Moroccans for only four days before he was transferred… another rendition, the lucky man. To Egypt." More typing. "Hm. The Egyptians have better security. This might take a minute."

Reese finished his coffee and stood up. He crumpled his empty paper cup and took it over to the trash, and then took a turn around the station. Bear raised his head to watch him, but evidently decided that there was no chance of a walk, and lowered his head again.

"Here we go..." said Finch. "He arrived in Cairo on July 28th. There he seems to have languished for...three weeks at least. Hm. A transfer to another cell block. Then to the prison hospital, that seems ominous. Back into a cell on September 12th. And that's where the log ends." He leaned back, absent-mindedly massaging his neck.

"Nothing else?" asked Shaw.

"No. Not from that source. And remember, developing countries are much less heavily surveilled than we are. I doubt there are many other sources existent, let alone accessible."

"So the trail goes cold in Cairo," said Carter thoughtfully. "Well, it could be worse."

"So Shaw stays here to take care of the Numbers and I go to Egypt. Guess I'd better get home and start packing," said Reese.

"I thought you were always packing," said Shaw.

Reese didn't dignify the joke with a reply, just reached for Joss's hand. "C'mon, Joss. I've got a plane to catch in the morning."

She shot an indecipherable glance at him, but only said, "Hm," in reply to this.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

"I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not," he said patiently.

"Oh, yes I am." Carter was standing in their living room with her hands on her hips.

"You just got out of hospital."

"Because I'm okay now."

He felt like tearing his hair. "You can't come."

"Why not?"

"Because… because I don't know where I'm going, or how long this will take. He's probably dead, but he might still be stuck in a cell somewhere. In which case I'm going to have to get him out. Carter, I can't be worrying about you as well."

"Oh, so I get to do the worrying instead, is that it? Thanks, John." She took one hand off her hip long enough to swipe a strand of hair out of her eyes, then prodded a finger into his chest. "Well lemme tell you this. You get on a plane, I'll be one flight behind you. You're not locking me out of this one, John." A slow smile. "You're stuck with me, remember? Two can play at that game."

He gazed at her in exasperation. "Okay, I'll make you a deal."

"Uh-huh?"

"If you can keep up with me, you can come with me." He went through to their bedroom and began changing into sweats. "C'mon, Joss. We're going for a run."

She glared at him, but said nothing as she followed him into the bedroom and began getting into her own running gear.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

He was leading by more than fifty yards by the time they made it back to the apartment building. He waited by the front doors, watching her jogging steadily along the side walk towards him. It was difficult not to admire the way in which she'd hung on doggedly, fighting hard and making him work for every yard of ground he'd gained on her. But his greater endurance had come to the fore in the last half mile. He held the door open for her as she came up the steps and she swept past him, taking a pull from her water bottle as she did so. He suppressed a smile and followed her toward the elevator.

Back up in the apartment she still wasn't talking, just pointed him toward the shower. But when he came out, towelling his hair dry, she had a suitcase out on the bed. "Three, four, five..." she was muttering under her breath as she placed brightly coloured cotton panties atop the pile of clothing taking up one side of the case. "Oh, good, you're out. Don't you mess with that, I'll be through in a jiffy." She started towards the shower.

"Hey. You're not coming with me-" he started to say.

"The hell I'm not." Her eyes flashed.

"We had a deal!"

"Oh no we didn't. You suggested it, but I never said a word. Just thought letting you run a couple of miles might improve your mood and make you more reasonable. I'm coming too, John. No more discussion necessary." She pushed past him and disappeared into the bathroom.

He stared after her and opened his mouth to say something, but she was gone. An immovable object, that's what she was. But since she couldn't see him, he allowed the corners of his mouth to crook upwards, just a little bit.

To be continued….


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Kiki, you were logged in as a guest so I couldn't reply to you directly - but your review made me go squee! in the middle of the supermarket :-) So this chap is for you. And thanks to all the other readers who have favourited this or posted reviews.**

The direct flight from New York to Cairo got in at just after 06:00 local time, but it was more like 08:00 by the time they cleared customs. Joss was rubbing her temples, trying to subdue a pounding headache as they left the relative comfort of the air-conditioned arrivals hall and ventured outside to the taxi rank. There they were surrounded by a crowd of young men, some only boys, all touting for hotels. The babble of their voices washed over her, and she was content to let John deal with the furore. She sat exhaustedly on her suitcase while he haggled in Arabic with a couple of them, finally winnowing them down to one middle-aged man who nodded and smiled at them, half-bowing as he ushered them in the direction of his taxi and hastening to seize the handle of her case from her. The other touts drifted away or turned their attention to other passengers trickling out of the building. It was actually only moderately warm, in the shade at least, but she could tell that as the sun rose the temperature would climb rapidly. They collapsed onto the back seat of the taxi and watched the straggling pale beige outskirts of Cairo roll past them.

"Do you have any idea where we're going next?" she asked John, leaning her head on his shoulder.

"I've got a contact here, someone I knew from a while back," he said, taking her hand and stroking it. He looked unshaven, but alert. Lucky stiff had slept nearly all the way from New York; she supposed he must have had a lot of practice at sleeping on airplanes. "We'll dump our stuff at the hotel and freshen up and I'll make a couple of calls, see if I can locate him. Then we'll see."

The hotel was a small building jammed in between two much taller, sleeker towers near the city centre. When they arrived in the lobby Joss was impressed with the marble facings and gleaming brass fittings. "Don't get your hopes up, Joss. They put all the money into the lobby," John whispered to her. So it proved as things got a lot more plain in the hallway leading to their room. Still, it was cool and clean enough, even though the view was of the closed shutters of another hotel room in the next building, five feet away. She tottered across the tiled floor and collapsed on the bed with a relieved huff. John sat down next to her, peeling off his shoes and socks. There was a wooden fan on the ceiling above the bed, and slatted wooden shutters at the window – open now to receive the tiny whisper of a breeze making its way between the buildings. The sound of Cairene drivers continuously tooting their horns at each other echoed around her head as she fell asleep….

POI*POI*POI*POI*

When she woke it was early afternoon. John was sitting in a chair by the window turning his phone over in his hands.

"Did you make contact with your guy?" she asked, sitting up.

"Yeah. He's out of the Army now, providing security at tourist resorts and such. But he's going to call in a couple of favours and ask around. He'll get back to me tomorrow."

Joss ran her hands through her hair. "So what do we do while we wait?"

John raised his eyebrows at her and gave a long, slow blink, accompanied by his most brazen smirk. Really, there should be a law against that look…

"Are you kidding? We can do that any old time. Not every day of the week I get to visit Cairo! C'mon, John. You've been here before, right? Where should we go visit first?"

He pretended to be downcast, though she could see the glint in his eyes which promised good things for later.

"I was working last time I was here, but there used to be a good restaurant not too far down this street. And we're only about a fifteen minute walk from the Egyptian Museum. If you want to kill a couple of hours we could go there, I guess."

"Right, then. The Museum and then dinner at the restaurant." Energised, she grabbed her suitcase, abandoned just inside the door, and hoisted it up onto the bed.

"Make sure you wear something with sleeves. When I was here last the local men tried hassling Kara because she was dressed in a sleeveless top and shorts."

"I bet that didn't end well," said Joss, pausing as she pulled her travelled-in t-shirt over her head.

"Well, no. She hospitalised three of them, and we had to, um, cut our visit short and leave the country quite quickly. The folks at Langley were pretty pissed with us."

"Uh huh. Okay, I promise not to hospitalise anyone. Or draw unnecessary attention to myself."

She changed into a cotton skirt and a long-sleeved blouse and they made their way down to the marble-clad lobby and out onto the street.

Maybe it was John's presence with her, or perhaps the male population of Cairo had developed some manners since John's visit, but in any case there were no incidents on their walk to the Museum. They played tourist for more than three hours, moving through room after room of wonders. A monumental statue of Akhenaten looming over her from the shadows, its immense, distorted visage like something from a Halloween funfair. The inscrutable calm of Tutankhamun, gazing at her from his gleaming golden death mask. The rank of great kings of the past, their strange grey-brown mummified faces, wisps of reddish hair clinging to their dry scalps. An enchanting collection of little models of everyday life in the Middle Kingdom from some noble's tomb – farmers driving cattle, a bare-breasted woman kneading dough... Joss stared in fascination at it all, feeling like one of the gawking tourists she'd so often smiled at in New York. At last they emerged into the Cairo dusk. Cars were still tooting their way along the streets and around Midan Tahrir as they began their stroll back through the night to the hotel.

A few street vendors were still around, most packing up their wares. One young lad was listlessly displaying his tray of plastic-wrapped cookies and snack bars in the hopes of a last sale for the day. As John and Joss approached he lifted his head hopefully, the street light showing the opaque, grey pupils of his soft brown eyes. Cataracts. Joss caught her breath – the kid was way younger than Taylor, should be in school but here he was scraping a living on the street. It didn't seem right. She fumbled in her bag for some coins and bought one of his cookies. John looked on, an odd expression on his face. "You can't help everyone," he murmured to her as they turned away.

"You're a fine one to tell me that," she shot back.

He gave a sad smile. "Yeah, you're right."

They walked on in silence.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

"So, I called some of my contacts and asked around about your guy," said Muhammed. He was a tall, handsome man with thick, wavy black hair and smooth mahogany skin. They were sitting outside a restaurant sipping tea and watching the passers-by. He paused for another sip, and went on. "It took some digging, but I finally found someone who remembered him."

Reese leaned forward. "So do you have a location on him?"

"Yes – and no." Muhammed's face was serious. "My contact remembered him because he continued to deny his involvement in any terror network, or anything else, the whole way through his interrogation. Your people were especially interested in the money trail from his transaction with the Chinese, but he denied it all. In the end some quite, ah, _extreme_ measures were taken, but he still denied it." Another sip of tea.

Joss was shaking her head at this. "Didn't it occur to anyone he might be innocent? Nah, stupid question," she answered herself.

Muhammed gave an elaborate shrug. "What happens, happens. In the end they gave up and dumped him. Out in the desert, beyond Giza. He was still alive at the time, but..." He shrugged again.

Reese sat still, thinking this through. "Can you give me a map location? Even an approximate one?"

Muhammed sighed and shook his head. "It's not going to be any use, Joe," he said.

Reese was getting Google Earth up on his phone. "Just give me an area, Muhammed. I need to wrap this one up with as much certainty as I can."

Muhammed took the phone and scrolled around until he found the area he wanted and handed the phone back to Reese. "From what they said, I think it's about here. But you won't find anything."

"I know," said Reese. "But I have to look."

"Well, good luck, Joe." Muhammed got up from the table. "Thanks for the tea." He turned and walked away into the crowd.

"Joe?' said Joss, smiling.

Reese shrugged one shoulder. "Didn't seem any point in telling him the truth now."

"No, I guess not. So what do we do next?"

Reese was looking at the map on his phone. "I guess we hire a car and go look."

POI*POI*POI*POI*

They waited until after the heat of the day before venturing out of the city. The road was dead straight; the landscape almost completely flat. Desert to the right, desert to the left, desert straight ahead, all the way to the Libyan border, hundreds of miles away. After a few miles Reese slowed the car down. The sun was setting ahead of him, its horizontal rays throwing every slight dip or hump in the ground into high relief. At last he pulled to a stop, turned the car, and they began the drive back towards the city, hugging the side of the road and slowing to not much over walking pace. Nothing – not that he was even sure what they were looking for. A grave mound maybe, where a dessicated corpse had been dumped in a scrape in the desert and covered over. Maybe to be dug up by archaeologists in a thousand years' time, a natural mummy.

The sun dipped lower, and disappeared. The desert was purple, the sky deep blue. There was a bright glow in the sky ahead of them – a city of twenty million people lighting up the night. Some flickers and flashes in the gathering dark out to their right caught Joss's eye. "Hey – look, John," she said softly. "It must be that sound and light show they do for the tourists at the pyramids each night." Beams of light were stabbing up into the sky, playing across the tiny triangular shapes away on the horizon.

He glanced out in that direction. "Yeah." After another couple of minutes the light was almost gone and he began to increase the car's speed. "There's nothing here, Carter. Let's go home."

Back at the hotel he stretched out on the bed, gazing up at the ceiling fan as it rotated slowly.

"We could go back out tomorrow," said Carter tentatively. "Take another look."

He shook his head slowly, still transfixed by the fan. "No. No, I don't think so. I don't think he's there."

"Hm." She flopped on the bed beside him. "What next?"

He let out a long sigh. "I think I'll sleep on it. But right now I can't think of anything else. I guess we have something to tell Talbot, at least."

She hugged him around the waist. "Do you think he'll let you go?"

"Don't know." He didn't feel like talking, so he pulled her close and kissed her instead. She responded enthusiastically. He pulled her on top of him, and she didn't object in the slightest, running her hands over his shoulders and up his neck to bury her fingers in his hair. In return he slid his hands under her tee shirt and along her back, rejoicing in the smooth expanse of warm skin. Suddenly they seemed to be wearing far too many clothes…

After they finished they lay in a happy, sweaty tangle of limbs. The sounds of the traffic outside had died away a little. Reese planted a kiss on Joss's forehead as she lay with her head pillowed on his chest. He ran his fingers through her hair: such beautiful hair, thick and dark and glossy.

"Hey John." Her voice was sleepy.

"Mm?"

"Let's go be tourists again tomorrow."

"Huh?"

"Well, we don't have any more leads on Marriott right now. Let's take a day off this and go do something else. Sometimes that shakes new ideas loose."

He thought for a moment. Maybe she was right. He kissed her forehead again. "Admit it, you just want to see the pyramids."

She chuckled in the dark. "Yeah, you got me there. But who knows? Maybe something will come of it."

"Hm. Maybe." There was silence then, just city noises coming in through the window as they drifted off to sleep.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

There was a gaggle of beggars waiting just inside the gate to the pyramid complex. Some danced around offering themselves as guides; others, more realistic perhaps, simply sat at a short distance, calling out. "Baksheesh! Baksheesh!" the babble wove into itself, becoming just a confusion of white noise. Reese took Joss's arm firmly and they wove themselves through the crowd. Tourist police looked on, bored but prepared to move in if any of the beggars or touts got too aggressive.

They began the walk towards the pyramids. From a distance they didn't look all that impressive, Reese thought with disappointment. But as they drew closer he revised his opinion. The problem, he decided, was scale. In the flat desert there was nothing to give a sense of scale. It was only as they got close enough to resolve the dots moving around the plateau on which the man-made mountains sat, that he realised just how mind-bogglingly big they were. Those blocks of stone which formed the lower courses of the nearest pyramid were not just knee-high – they were the height of a tall man.

"Wow," he heard Joss say as she suddenly got the change of perspective. Suddenly his heart lightened. He couldn't be sure what they'd return to in the States – how Talbot would take his lack of success – but he had a surge of happiness that he and Carter were here, now, together. It wasn't exactly a vacation, but it was surely the nearest they were going to get for a long time, maybe ever. So he grabbed her hand as they strolled closer, their necks gradually craning back as they took in the towering height of the ancient monuments.

And so again they played tourist. Carter paid for a camel ride, laughing and clinging on as he took pictures with his phone. They queued up to see the restored ship in its special museum. They paid Egyptian pounds over to a local, who guided them into the burial chamber of Khafre's pyramid, and pointed out the graffiti to them – some from the French invasion at the turn of the 19th century, some dating back to Roman times. They wandered among the tumbled stones of the mortuary temple of Menkaure at the far end of the complex, marvelling at the high shine still there on massive granite blocks more than four thousand years old. Then they sweated in the hot afternoon sun as they trudged back towards the entrance, although Carter stoutly maintained that it got hotter in New York in the summer. There were food vendors selling falafel and cold sodas nearer the heart of the site; they bought some and found a baking hot fallen stone to sit on while they planned their next move. "Wait'll I tell Fusco about this," said Carter as she ate. "Can you imagine what he'll say? 'Jeez, Carter, ya didn't need to go all the way to Egypt for falafel, there's a great falafel stand just two blocks away!'"

Reese smiled back at her as he took a swig of Coke. Then his eyes narrowed. There was a beggar over there – one of the ones who just sat on his mat and called out to the tourists as they passed. A big guy, bigger than the normal run of Egyptian beggars. A straggly beard which was mostly white but still betrayed the odd streak of blonde…

He was on his feet, moving towards the guy, his Coke forgotten.

"Baksheesh! Baksheesh!" the beggar was saying, over and over again, mechanically. Reese was faintly aware of Carter catching up with him as he reached the man, who turned his face towards them. A sunburned face, baked deep brown in the Egyptian sun. But where Reese expected to find piercing blue eyes there were vacant sockets.

"Baksheesh!"

Carter sucked in a shocked breath at the sight of the man's ruined face, but Reese was suddenly completely sure. He crouched down next to the beggar. "Daniel Marriott? We've been looking for you..."

To be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

"My God." The beggar's mouth dropped open in shock. "You… you _what_?"

"We've been looking for you," said Joss. "Tom Talbot sent us."

"Tommy?" The man wiped at his eyes, or where they should be.

Joss squatted next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Mr Marriott. We've come to take you home." The beggar was crying openly now, the tears spilling over the edges of his vacant eye sockets. Joss found it a deeply disturbing sight, although at least she didn't have to disguise her expression. Something large suddenly blocked out the bright sunlight.

"Excuse me, sir, madame?" A black-clad tourist policeman mounted on a camel was staring down at them. "Can I assist you?"

John stood up. "No, thank you. I think we're all right here." He gazed up at the policeman, who gazed impassively back at him for a moment and then nodded and turned his camel away.

"Let's get you out of here," said Joss to the beggar.

"I...I..." the man gulped several times and then said "Will you come to my home? We can talk there."

"Your home?" Joss's brows drew in.

"Yes, it's not far." Marriott was recovering. He got to his feet, picking up his mat and the upturned baseball cap which held his day's pickings. He groped around on the ground and located a long cane which Joss hadn't previously noticed. "This way," he said, and set off across the stony ground, locating a path with his cane and then following it with surprising confidence. John and Joss followed.

Marriott led them across the plateau, away from the pyramids, and then down a slope. He slowed as the incline became steeper. "I hate this part," he said conversationally. There was almost no-one about, just a few figures in Arab dress moving around some distance off. The path was heading steeply downhill with a stony bank gradually rising alongside it. Near the bottom Joss could see, incongruously, heavy metal doors set into what was by then the hillside. She moved forward and took Marriott's arm. "Thank you," he said gratefully. As they reached the bottom he stuck out his cane and let it trail along beside him, touching each of the doors as he came to it. At the fourth one he stopped. "Here it is," he said. He groped amongst the dirty white rags he was wearing and pulled out a large metal key. Groping for the lock, he inserted the key and turned it. There was a slight squeak as the door swung open, revealing a dark passage into the hillside.

"Do come in," said Marriott, strangely courteous.

"Um, it's pretty dark in there, Daniel," said John behind them.

"Oh, is it? Sorry, I never thought. I think there's a power switch there somewhere by the door."

Joss could see it, a big industrial type thing with heavy cables leading away from it. "What is this place?" she asked as John reached past her and flipped the enormous circuit breaker. There was a muffled thud as the lights came on.

"It's a tomb," said Marriott. He gestured them inside and pulled the door closed behind them. "One of the site guards lets me live here in return for a share of my takings." He led them along a passageway past peeling, damaged wall paintings of people reaping grain, herding cattle, marching to war… the passage suddenly widened into a chamber. The lights placed in each corner lit up a deep blue ceiling covered with painted golden stars. Animal-headed gods and goddesses, separated by columns of hieroglyphic writing, formed a stately procession around the walls. In a dark corner there was a small pile of neatly-folded bedding, topped with a tattered old army-surplus sleeping bag. "I have to be out of here by morning," Marriott explained. "But not many tourists make it down here, and no-one's ever complained about the sleeping gear. Anyway, make yourselves comfortable." He sat carefully down on the floor. Joss exchanged looks with John, and they joined him.

"So how did you get here?" John asked.

Marriott leaned back against a painted god and laced his fingers behind his head. "What do you know already?"

"We know you were illegally rendered from the US and ended up here," said Joss before John could say anything. "We were told you were dumped out in the desert. Apart from that, we don't know much for sure." She made herself look at Marriott's eyes again. "Though now I see you I can guess a whole lot."

Marriott's mouth twitched into which might be described as a smile. "The short story is, when I couldn't convince them I was innocent, they gouged my eyes out. And when I wouldn't tell them where I'd hidden my ill-gotten gains, they beat me half to death and, yes, dumped me out in the desert."

Joss glanced at John. His face was wooden.

"Luckily some people found me by the side of the road," Marriott continued. "I couldn't speak Arabic then, so I have no idea who they were or why they picked me up. But they kept me alive. We were living, I think, in a shack on the outskirts of Giza. After I had recovered a bit they used to take me to the gate of the pyramid complex and use me to beg off the tourists. I think they might have dyed my hair so I didn't look so obviously like a Westerner. I know they washed it a couple of times. Or maybe no-one looked past my eyes. I don't really know. I guess I was useful to them, but one day no-one came to collect me at the end of the day. By then I had a few fragments of the language and so I just kept on begging."

"Why didn't you..." Joss's voice trailed off.

"Go to the Embassy? You're kidding, right? By the way, who are you?"

"Oh. My name's Joss Carter. This is John. Your, um, friend Tom Talbot sent us after you."

"Tom! Is he all right?" There was sudden eagerness in the man's voice.

"Yeah. Yeah, he is," said Joss.

"In fact, I think it might be safe for you to go back to the US, if you want to," added John. "Tom Talbot climbed the career ladder. He's in a position to protect you now."

A genuine smile lightened Marriott's face. "That would be Tom all over," he said proudly. "He always was the sharpest knife in the drawer."

"Well," said Joss softly, "maybe it's time you came home, then. He's waiting for you."

"Nothing would-" whispered Marriott. He stopped and cleared his throat. "Nothing would please me more."

POI*POI*POI*POI*

They got back to the hotel late that evening. Marriott was installed in a room down the hall, worn out and dazed by the afternoon's activities: a medical check at a discreet clinic, bathing and shaving and finding new clothes. And sunglasses. The clinic doctor had been horrified at the state of Marriott's mutilated eye sockets, and was gently pessimistic that prosthetics could be fitted to them, but Marriott was already speaking hopefully of second opinions at the best clinics in the US. In the mean time, he said, dark glasses would have to do. But Reese's heart warmed at the sight of the man already making plans as the future opened out before him. He could imagine what a good feeling that was.

A dinner at a café across from the clinic was seemingly Marriott's first full meal in months, maybe years. The man was practically unconscious when they'd steered him through the doorway of his room, helped him locate the bed and toilet, and then withdrawn with assurances that they were only a few yards away. He'd seemed torn between a desperate need to be alone to absorb his sudden change of fortune, and an understandable fear of unfamiliar surroundings.

Joss, too seemed at last to be unwinding. She curled up in the bed and Reese wrapped himself around her. They fell asleep at almost the same time, wrung out.

Reese woke during the night as Joss began to twitch and writhe in his arms.

"I don't know! I don't know..." She began gagging and snapped awake, sweating and shivering. "Oh, God. John. Sorry. Sorry. It was a dream," she mumbled incoherently. "I was back there… Jen..."

He pulled her in close. "Hey. You're okay now."

"Yeah. Yeah, I am." She lay still in his arms. "Thank you for coming for me."

"It's what I do."

"And thank you for not killing her. Even when I told you to."

There was a long silence. His fingers, tracing a looping curve up and down her arm, stilled. "Yeah."

They lay in silence, their breaths synchronising. His fingers resumed their stroking.

"I...I..." Carter began. He dropped a kiss on her forehead.

"You don't have to explain. She'd just been torturing you."

"Well, yes. But that shouldn't be an excuse. You arrest someone when they've been doing something wrong, you don't kill them."

His breath huffed out in a chuckle. "For God's sake, Joss, will you cut yourself some slack? No one else I know would even be having this conversation."

"Huh. I think we both owe Fusco, though. Big time."

"Not disagreeing with you, Carter. Not one bit."

She propped herself up on one elbow, stroking his hair in the dark. "So tell him some time, John. Okay?"

He pulled her close and began kissing her neck. "I think he knows," he said, his voice muffled.

"No, I mean it. You tell him… unghhh…." As he reached her breasts, her hands began roving deliciously.

"Anything…. you…. say….ahhhh..." he gasped the words out, before speech became impossible.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

Reese pulled the car into the underground parking at the Coronet and got out to help Carter assist Marriott. It had taken over a week, and a fake passport messengered from Finch, to get Marriott from his tomb in Giza to the hotel room in Cairo, to Cairo International Airport and then on to New York. But at last they were here.

Together they walked him across the echoing space to the elevator. Marriott was trembling slightly as they got out on the twelfth floor, and his trembling got worse with every step along the corridor. As they halted outside the door of 1212 he raised a hand. "Just give me a moment," he whispered. They stood there on either side of him as he breathed deeply. The shudders gradually lessened, and at last he nodded. "Thank you. Thank you both…. so much." He took off his sunglasses, raised a hand and tapped on the door.

It opened almost immediately. Talbot was there, his face ashen. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came; he simply stood there with his mouth working helplessly and tears starting in his eyes.

Reese gestured to him, and he stood aside as they led Marriott into the room. The door closed softly behind them, and then Talbot was there, reaching a shaking hand across to touch his lover's sleeve.

"Oh, God, Danny. Your eyes- what did they do to you?"

Marriott put out a hand to grasp Talbot by the forearm. He pulled him close and raised his other hand to trace Talbot's hairline, ending with his palm to the other man's cheek. "It's okay, Tom. It's all going to be okay." He pulled him closer. Reese gave Carter a small smile and took her hand as they left the room. He have a last glance over his shoulder at the couple. They were holding each other close, foreheads pressed together, trying not to cry. The door closed.

As they strolled down the hotel corridor towards the elevator, he put his arm around Carter's shoulders and pulled her in against his side.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

They were back at the subway station. This time Finch was drinking his green tea with them, the computer, ignored for the time being, behind him. Shaw was rubbing her stomach absently as she sucked on a carton of milk, while Reese and Carter had their usual coffees. There was a remarkably mellow atmosphere in the station. Reese had passed around his phone with the photos of Carter on the camel.

"So you're telling me you went off to Egypt for a week, leaving me and Fusco to deal with the Numbers, and just went sightseeing?" Shaw pretended to frown at Joss.

"Yeah, well, maybe it wasn't quite what I expected. I thought we'd be, I dunno, busting poor old Marriott out of jail or something," said Carter.

"Though in the end if you hadn't had the impulse to play tourist, you'd never have found him," Finch pointed out.

"It all worked out in the end," said Reese comfortably. He was contemplating the concept of atonement. Just for once it seemed quite possible. He'd never given that 2008 mission a second thought; the guy they'd rendered had been a minor detail compared to his encounter with Peter Arndt in the bar when he'd been taking some R and R. He had thought about that plenty, and about Kara Stanton's words to him: "We're not walking in the dark, we _are_ the dark." But he hadn't wasted a single thought on the guy in the black hood they'd rendered to Morocco the following day. It was funny to think that that guy had had his own story, that he'd been screwed over by the government just as thoroughly as Reese, and for as little reason. At least Reese had got out in one piece, kind of. Still… _what would you have rather lost, your eyesight, or Jessica?_ Not much point going down that path. Maybe Marriott would consider it a fair deal, that getting his lover back would outweigh the loss of his sight. Of course it was a screwed-up world that placed people in situations like that, but still… he forced his thoughts away from such matters. However you sliced and diced it, he could go to bed tonight feeling that the world was just a little bit better for his efforts. That was worth a lot.

POI*POI*POI*POI*

ACCESSING AUDIO FEEDS….

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Talbot, Thomas XXX-XX-4098

Status: Non-Threat

Marriott, Daniel XXX-XX-9261

Status: Non-Threat

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Talbot: Oh, God, Danny. Your eyes – what did they do to you?

Marriott: It's okay, Tom. It's all going to be okay.

Talbot: I love you so much. I waited-

Marriott: It's okay. It's okay.

Talbot: But your eyes-

Marriott: Hey. Hey. No need to cry. I keep telling you – it's going to be okay. They never found the money.

Talbot: …

Talbot: What?

Marriott: The CIA never found the money. From the Chinese. It's all still there. We can go away, somewhere we never have to hide again.

Talbot: But you...but you… you were innocent. You never sold those secrets-

Marriott: But I did, Tom. For you. For us. We can go away now. Somewhere we can sit in the sun and drink good wine and laugh about all of this.

Talbot: …

Talbot: I waited. I waited for you, because I knew you were innocent.

Marriott: …

Talbot: [indecipherable]

[gunshot]

[gunshot]

ACCESSING DIGITAL SOURCES…

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PRESS RELEASE

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

The Central Intelligence Agency is deeply saddened to announce the death of its Deputy Director, Mr Thomas Talbot, in New York yesterday.

Mr Talbot over many years offered unstinting service to this agency and to his country. The Central Intelligence Agency extends its deepest condolences to Mr Talbot's wife Margaret, his son Daniel and his daughter Claire at this tragic time.

No further comment is available.

PRESS RELEASE ENDS

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New York Journal: CIA BOSS IN MURDER-SUICIDE

CIA Deputy Director Tom Talbot was found dead in his hotel room today with a so far unidentified man in an apparent murder-suicide. Neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor the Talbot family was available today for comment, although a source within the NYPD confirms it was Talbot who fired the fatal shots...

The End

 **A/N: Well, that's it for now, folks, although I do have some bits and pieces waiting to be joined up into another story... as some of you have correctly noticed, something's going on with Shaw. And Martin's out there with Athene - I'm not sure we've heard the last from them... But right now my muse is a bit tuckered out. Once she's had a rest we'll see what she comes up with. But in the mean time, thanks for reading, and please review if you liked it!**


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